Although moral muteness is frowned upon, I believe everyone, in some way or another, regrets a time when they behaved morally mute. As I have grown older, I find myself standing up for what I believe in and confronting any situation that I believe is unethical. However, when I was younger, I found it harder to speak up in certain situations. When I was a freshman in high school, I experienced moral muteness when at work. It was my first summer working at a resort pool, and I was finally getting to know people and getting the hang of working full time for the first time. I was an attendant at the pool, and each of us changed duties throughout the day. There was a rotation for employees where some would greet guests at the door, operate the slides, sit at the boat dock, or be on "milkshake duty." One day, I witnessed one of my coworkers, who had become a good friend of mine, making a milkshake for himself, rather than for a guest who had ordered one. It was against hotel policy to eat or drink any of the food or drinks for guests and was considered stealing hotel property. I decided not to tell any of my supervisors because I had just began working there and didn't want to get one of my coworkers in trouble. Had I told anyone about this, he would have gotten fired and I was worried other coworkers would blame this on me and treat me differently.
After reflecting on this incident, I realize I was putting the loyalty of a friend over another important value: morality. What he did was ethically wrong, but I didn't want to be the reason he suffered the consequences, even if he brought them on himself. Loyalty is one of my greatest values, and it was hard for me to tell on someone who had been a good friend to me. I was also worried about what others would think of me if they knew that I was the reason he had gotten fired, and this fear kept me from doing what is ethically right. As I've grown older, I have found that it has gotten easier to stand up for what I think is morally right, and as a result, I have found myself participating in moral muteness much less often.
Jackie,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, I can say that I have experienced a similar situation to yours at work. I used to work at Menchies, and the girls I worked with always ate the frozen yogurt and toppings while working. This was against our policy as well, but I kept my mouth shut. Our boss never was there, but since these girls were the managers, they thought they could do whatever they wanted. There were cameras in our place, but the manager’s barley looked at them. I was also friends with the girls, so I did not want to tell anyone either. They would treat me bad at work since I just started and they were ahead of me. I just went with the flow and acted like what they were doing was not wrong. I feel as if these situations are common with any little company.
Jackie, thank you for sharing this with us. Its sadly it can be increasingly difficult to put our personal relationships over that of what is the right thing to do.
ReplyDeleteLike what Zoe said, I think one of the biggest things we think about when we are facing a "moral muteness" situation is personal relationships. Some people don't want to look bad in front of others; some people don't want to ruin a friendship; and some people simply just don't want to be involved in a complicated relationship problem. I could totally say that most moral muteness I have had are almost all to some degrees related to the personal relationships I have.
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